Hometown

By Monali Dam

There will come a phase in adulthood where you make that cherished journey back to the place you grew up. Recently I made a trip to my hometown Jamshedpur almost after two decades. I was consumed with a mixed of emotions of loss and joy. Loss: because my parents are dead and long gone. Joy because of returning to my ancestral home, sleeping on that same familiar bed, meeting and interacting with my cousins and old friends and neighbors. Nothing beats that. To reminisce with old friends and family members is a feeling which cannot be expressed in words. For once the passage of time did not bother us and it felt exactly the same where we left things back and exactly the way you remember it. We ate the same familiar tasty food, visited our favorite restaurant’s the ones which survived, cracked similar silly jokes and pour our hearts with each other.

Change is inevitable. buildings are demolished, shops are converted into malls, playgrounds are now made into parks. What remained same is the soul and charm of the town, the warmth and hospitality of my family members, the abundance of blessings from the elders .No matter where life takes you the kaleidoscope of bittersweet memories is precisely the pull of a return to our hometown.

By Monali Dam